Note 414 — SCENE III.

Kneels] “This [common] custom of 'kneeling and drinking of healths’ kindled the wrath of various puritanical writers. Stubbes, in his Anatomy of Abuses, tells a story of a man in Almaine, who, drinking a health to his Creator on his knees, was fixed for ever like a statue, which horses could not draw nor fire burn. R. Junius, in his Drunkard’s Character, 1638, speaks of ‘a Lincolnshire man, well known, that in his cups drank a health to the devil, who had no sooner drank it off, but he fell down dead.’ ‘To mend the matter (he says elsewhere), lest Satan should want his due reverence, these wine-worshippers will be at it on their knees, especially if they drink a great man’s health,’ p. 313.” Reed.